Joint UAV Position and Power Optimization for Accurate Regional Localization in Space-Air Integrated Localization Network

Accurate location estimation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices within an Area of Interest (AoI) is a challenging issue, especially in a global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-constrained environment. In this article, we present a space-air integrated localization network (SAILN) architecture to exploit the advantages of the unmanned-aerial-vehicle (UAV)-based localization through joint position and power optimization (JPPO) strategies. In SAILN, UAVs can utilize their flexible movement to obtain the line-of-sight (LOS) path with a high probability, thereby providing the potential IoT devices in the AoI with supplementary localization information. The JPPO of UAVs aims to improve the regional localization accuracy for the entire AoI, considering the no-fly-zone (NFZ) and the total energy constraint. We propose the average localization accuracy increment (ALAI) of the sampling points in the AoI as the metric to measure the performance of SAILN compared with that of only satellites, which is regarded as the objective to formulate the JPPO problems for UAV operations in both static and dynamic SAILN. The intractable problems can be resolved by the pure genetic algorithm (PGA) that has a low computational cost and unique features suiting the JPPO of UAVs. Then, by taking advantage of the ALAI convexity to the UAVs' power, we propose a power reallocation-based two-step algorithm (PRTSA) to further explore an improved JPPO solution. Simulation results validate that the proposed PRTSA can obtain a higher localization accuracy for the entire AoI than the PGA and the other straightforward baselines.

Automated summary

This article introduces a space-air integrated localization network (SAILN) architecture that utilizes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for accurate location estimation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices within an Area of Interest (AoI) in a global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-constrained environment. The joint position and power optimization (JPPO) strategies of UAVs aim to improve regional localization accuracy for the entire AoI while considering no-fly-zones (NFZ) and total energy constraints. Simulation results show that a power reallocation-based two-step algorithm (PRTSA) can achieve higher localization accuracy compared to baseline methods.